Why should I have to do it?

When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
novice.

Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
the rubbish ever reaches me?
----
Reg.

"Reg Edwards" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dsuvuk$3sn$(E-Mail Removed)...
> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
> novice.
>
> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
> anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
> providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
> the rubbish ever reaches me?
> ----
> Reg.

Have you tried your ISP's website, email section?
I use the free Wanadoo anti-spam facility and it does a pretty good job.
(Apart from enabling the anti-spam feature, I don't use the Wanadoo website
for emails.)

Perhaps your real question is why the financing/costing model used by the
Internet allows the sending of millions of spam messages at apparently no
cost to the perpetrators.
--
M Stewart
Milton Keynes, UK
http://www.megalith.freeserve.co.uk/oddimage.htm

For all my moaning BT Yahoo filtration web side is very good. < 0.5% of Spam
gets through and IME <0.1% virus infected (harder to work out).

Norton on my PC catches what little gets through apart from three easily
recognised cases in the last two years.

"Malcolm Stewart" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:dsv37v$amu$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Reg Edwards" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:dsuvuk$3sn$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
>> novice.
>>
>> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
>> anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
>> providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
>> the rubbish ever reaches me?
>> ----
>> Reg.
>
> Have you tried your ISP's website, email section?
> I use the free Wanadoo anti-spam facility and it does a pretty good job.
> (Apart from enabling the anti-spam feature, I don't use the Wanadoo
> website
> for emails.)
>
> Perhaps your real question is why the financing/costing model used by the
> Internet allows the sending of millions of spam messages at apparently no
> cost to the perpetrators.
> --
> M Stewart
> Milton Keynes, UK
> http://www.megalith.freeserve.co.uk/oddimage.htm
>
>
>
>
>

Reg Edwards wrote:
> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
> novice.
>
> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
> anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
> providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
> the rubbish ever reaches me?
> ----
> Reg.

Most of it you don't nead to _purchase_, there are many packages that are
free t o download. How do you expect your ISP to monitor every site you
visit and stop you downloading something you may not want?
--
Adrian A

In article <dsuvuk$3sn$(E-Mail Removed)>,
"Reg Edwards" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
> novice.
>
> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
> anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
> providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
> the rubbish ever reaches me?

Reg - you sometimes give the impression that you think that the Internet
was "built" by someone - perhaps by the ISPs. It wasn't. It came into
being[1], and it evolved - like the planet you're living on. The ISPs
have simply made a major contribution as to _how_ it is evolving, but
other major contributors include commerce, the porn industry, and geeks
the world over.

ISPs can offer (or even claim) to control spam, but they cannot succeed
completely. Our mail hubs, at this University, reject 80% (I'll say
that again: 80%) of the spam which is directed at our site: millions of
message per month (or was it per week - I forget). But we cannot reject
it all, partly because we can never second-guess spammers' new tricks,
and partly because -- and this is the bit that interests you -- we
cannot know that a message about (say) Viagra is not a bona fide message
exchanged between two medical researchers. Or in your case perhaps, how
could your ISP tell if a message from a holiday company was just spam,
or a bona fide reply to your enquiry?

The above is simplified. We spend huge resources on anti-spam measures,
week in, week out. Some of it is bigger computers, most of it is staff
resource, deploying highly sophisticated software.

The best thing you can do to avoid spam is to use an email pseudonym (as
you see many of your fellow news users doing) (how you do that depends
on the software you're using to read Usenet News), or to keep another
email account which you use in public forums.

Why? because one of the oldest ways that spammers use to harvest email
addresses is to trawl Usenet news looking for them.

Cheers
John Law, Computing Service,
University of Newcastle (but see my email address)

[1] It came into being because the US DoD decided to link their networks
with research networks, which decided to link to each other across
countries and continents. Then the Web was invented; then good old
Capitalism saw how it could use the web... spammers are just a branch of
capitalism, mate.

"Reg Edwards" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dsuvuk$3sn$(E-Mail Removed)...
> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
> novice.
>
> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
> anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
> providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
> the rubbish ever reaches me?
> ----
> Reg.

Because if they did do that, you'd turn around and complain that everything
you were doing was being watched and argue something along the lines of
"dont they think im intelligent enough to do this on my own".

good post,

I think it should be pointed out that "the spam" itself is not really
problem, its the spammers, since the internet is a global resource (its
greatest strength and weakness) its a global social problem. Possibly a
good reason for the UN to take control of the internet ?.

--
Eps

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 10:31:48 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
>novice.
>
>Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
>anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
>providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
>the rubbish ever reaches me?
>----
>Reg.
>

ISP's that use Brightmail get rid of a huge amount of spam. The few
that remain are easy to handle by the client. Viruses can be easily
restricted by limiting the size of downloaded messages.

--
Steve Wolstenholme Neural Planner Software

EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
http://www.easynn.com

Reg Edwards wrote:
> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I am a relative
> novice.
>
> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to use anti-spam,
> anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-software, when service
> providers should be able to do it more efficiently than I can before
> the rubbish ever reaches me?

Because by taking the time to learn, you will be better able to
recognise and avoid security risks.

"Reg Edwards" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message
news:dsuvuk$3sn$(E-Mail Removed)
> When it comes to understanding how the internet works, I
> am a relative novice.
>
> Why should I have to purchase, install and learn how to
> use anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spyware and other
> anti-software, when service providers should be able to
> do it more efficiently than I can before the rubbish ever
> reaches me? ----
> Reg.

You *don't* have to, but then some of us like to be in control of our own
systems and not rely on other people doing the job properly (which IMHO
they rarely do).

You want your ISP to filter your mail, fine, but don't come complaining
when they (accidentally) delete some valid mail that just happens to match
their spam filter settings.

Ivor